Have you seen this yet? Posting the Snopes copy so you’ll see it’s for real. We had an actual xerox of the letter in the paper show up at work today.
http://www.snopes.com/media/iftrue/obituary.asp
Susan
Ouch.
Good for the daughter. I admire her honesty and courage and I’m glad for her sake that her mother is dead. That’s something I would do. Hopefully now she and her siblings can have closure.
I’ve oft wondered if there are Mother’s Day and Father’s Day cards for parents that were cruel and abusive but as their children grew up (became less vulnerable) and were able to get some sort of civilized (though guarded) relationship with their parents and wanted to at least acknowledge their parents on those days.
What would you give a parent that might have been verbally and physically abusive while you were growing up and maybe not so great even now that they’ve sobered up
especially when everybody else might be telling you that its impossible not to love one’s parents and that everybody deserves a second (or 3rd or 4th or 5th et cetera) chance?
I would give them nothing.
Usually one publishes a scratch in order to notify others of the passing of someone who will be missed. I have to wonder what was the purpose of publishing this if no-one will give a damn for her passing?
djm
Apparently some people did care, just not many (if you read the article).
We had one of a similar tone in our paper. An apparently troubled young man had committed suicide. His obit expressed gratitude that the family would no longer have to deal with his problems and were thankful he had chosen this path to relieve their suffering. I was stunned the paper chose to run it but obits are purchased space in our paper. Most of the other obits start: “Heaven received a new angel today” or “So and So had a Homegoing today.” My mother has pre-empted any thing we might say by writing her own, darn it! Actually it is quite humorous and definitely will not sit well amongst many in this community.
Catharsis.
Susan
No such thing as closure.
Writing your own obituary is a wonderful idea. We had to do it for a class on aging and death that I took last January.
Now that’s a great idea. 
I disagree. When a person who hurt me many times finally died, I was tremendously relieved of a tension that was there for years and I had actually gotten used to. That is what I mean by closure: the abuse and pain gets put in the past, forever. It still affects you, of course, but the person who did it is gone, forever.
I understand the anger that led to the obit,
and my own view is that, in such a case,
it’s best to say nothing.
I had an interesting experience. I dealt with some
people when I was a kid who were probably a good
deal worse than this lady. When I was in my
mid-thirties and had finally got myself
into some semblance of psychological
health, I went back and was cordial
and kind. Then I drifted away, much to
everyone’s relief (they were just as wretched
as before) and never saw them or contacted
them again.
Thank goodness America is a big place. You
can get away from such people.
I can relate to the easing of tension and time dulls the psychological pain, but I think closure is a lifelong process that rarely reaches fruition during life. For some that past can come up and bite you in the ___ when you least expect it, a sight, a smell, a sound. I still have a thing for narrow stairwells 'cause my dad like to toss me down them, he’s gone, burned, and buried, but I still hate those stairs.
I’m not addressing this to anyone in particular. I didn’t mean to start any kind of psychological thread (i.e., break the rules). Fine line to walk when commenting on this story, but let’s be careful!
Susan
You cannot hurt the dead very easily, so these things should be more about the living. It seems that an obituary like that says to others in the family that others are thinking the same thing and that it is OK to feel what you are feeling and that you do not have to feel guilty about it. The explanation given in snopes said that it was only after reading a different obituary that sounded nothing like her own experiences that she wrote one of her one. The Obit may have helped her own family and other families that have gone through the same thing, but could not or would not do the same.
I am careful.
Sorry, I try to walk the line, but that Tuesday Weld 
So, I’m not sure if this is a Procto or a taboo thing, but I am quite disenchanted with the rise of the term “closure” that I hear so often.
It’s just too nip and tuck (current usage) as though everything is now officially better. To me, it should be reserved to refer to missing persons who are finally found, dead or alive. Otherwise, it’s a funeral, which, in reality are supposed to be about “closure” anyway, right? I guess what I am saying is that the usage obscures the word’s meaning to the point of being meaningless.